


The World Has No Right To My Heart

by gremlinquisitor (suchanadorer)



Series: Padi Hawke [4]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, Padi Hawke (OC), mentions of past Anders/Hawke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 22:20:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19238236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suchanadorer/pseuds/gremlinquisitor
Summary: For DADWC on tumblr.It’s inevitable, she supposes. Sooner or later the Seeker’s curiosity would get the better of her pride and bring her to the battlement that Hawke has made her perch. She’d been hoping for later, but as she hears Cassandra descend the staircase with steps far heavier than necessary, she thinks that perhaps it’s just as well to get it over with.Credit to Shakespeare for the poem, Sonnet 29 is a favorite of mine.





	The World Has No Right To My Heart

It’s inevitable, she supposes. Sooner or later the Seeker’s curiosity would get the better of her pride and bring her to the battlement that Hawke has made her perch. She’d been hoping for later, but as she hears Cassandra descend the staircase with steps far heavier than necessary, she thinks that perhaps it’s just as well to get it over with.

“Champion.” Cassandra stops at the bottom of the stairs, one hand on her sword, the other hanging at her side. Hawke closes her eyes against the title, furrowing her brow as if the word causes her physical pain. After a moment, she opens her eyes again, giving Cassandra a sidelong glance.

“You can call me Hawke, Seeker.”

She’s leaning against the low wall, her arms resting on the stone, fingers hooked loosely together. The courtyard is always full of activity, and she likes the battlement. It keeps her out of the way of an operation that doesn’t need her mixed into it any more than she already is. She is impressed by the Inquisition, even if the presence of so many Templars - Cullen among them - has her nervous, and glad she came alone. This is nowhere for her sister to be, let alone any of the others. The only one who might have enjoyed himself is also the one it was hardest to leave behind, but his responsibilities lie elsewhere now.

She hears the scrape of armor as Cassandra approaches, but she fails to appear in Hawke’s line of vision, and when she looks back over her shoulder, Cassandra is there, nearby but not too close. She’s hovering, her bright eyes not landing in any one spot too long as she shifts her weight.

“Was there something you needed?” Hawke sighs, turning more fully away from the courtyard. She folds her arms over her chest and rests her hips against the wall, head tilted to one side. If she expects anything from Cassandra, she expects her rage, hopes for it. Let her take it out on someone her own size - a thought that she would never say aloud to Varric, but she means it in more than just stature. Isn’t she the one that Cassandra is really angry with, and shouldn’t she be the one to take the blows?

Cassandra settles, meeting Hawke’s gaze only to cast her eyes down, as if she can read her thoughts in the set of her jaw and the lines on her brow.

“I had hoped that we could talk. I have heard your story from Varric–” 

She spits the name out, and Hawke grinds her heel in the grit in response.

“But I was hoping to hear it from you, to hear the truth and find out more about some parts,” Cassandra continues, her tone appropriately softened. Her hand flexes around the sword’s pommel, but she speaks more resolutely.

Hawke grins, all teeth and threats. “Don’t tell me you didn’t like Varric’s book?”

It’s worth it to see the high color drain from Cassandra’s face. “It was a good book, but… I can’t help feeling that there is more that he didn’t include.”

_You better believe it._

Hawke sighs again, this time more clipped. This wide-eyed, nervous curiosity couldn’t be farther from the anger she was planning on; the Seeker might as well be standing there with a copy of _Tale of the Champion_ for her to sign.

She reminds herself that she is here to help, and that this might help Varric, and that it’s been a while since anyone asked her about any of it, a side effect of her spending all her time with people who already know the story because they lived it.

“Is there something in particular you’d like to know more about?”

Cassandra’s smile is fleeting, but it changes her entire face. Her eyes light up, all of her brightening before the storm cloud settles again. “Yes. I have always wondered about you and the apostate.”

That’s unexpected. Hawke raises her eyebrows and waits, settling her weight. Varric has told her about Cassandra’s particular interests, and if she’s asking what Hawke thinks she’s asking, then she can at least do the courtesy of saying the man’s name.

“There were a lot of apostates in Kirkwall. In my family, too. You asking about anyone specific?”

It is a small victory to see Cassandra’s expression sour, as if taking his name in her mouth is like biting into a berry that’s not yet ripe. “ _Anders,_ Hawke. You and Anders. Varric mentions that you were… close with him, before…”

“Before I stabbed him in the chest and left his body at the bottom of the stairs to Hightown,” Hawke finishes for her. They’re both quiet for a moment, each for their own reasons. Hawke waits until she’s sure that she can speak again without her voice trembling.

“I loved him,” she mutters. “He was sweet. He loved cats; he had one when he was a Grey Warden. I watched him deliver a baby once, and he cried with her mother. I watched him hold the hands of people that were too far gone for him to save, and I watched him empty himself trying to save as many as he could. People know how his life ended, but they don’t take the time to understand how he lived it.”

Cassandra’s frustration is palpable, and Hawke gets it. There are more than a couple people at Skyhold who blame themselves for what happened in Kirkwall. There are even more in Starkhaven. 

“One of the first nights after he’d moved in, he read me a poem. I had the book until we left the city. It might still be at the estate for all I know. I’ve tried to find it again but haven’t succeeded, and I can’t remember all of it anymore, just the end.”

It’s deeply satisfying to hear Cassandra’s soft gasp, enough that Hawke’s eyes flick up to look at her. She has a gloved hand in front of her mouth.

“He read you _poetry?_ ” Her voice is breathless when she asks.

Hawke nods. This is a detail that not even Varric has gotten to hear, but it’s worth it to see it in Cassandra’s eyes, the moment when the dangerous terrorist is flipped to a tragic hero in her tale.

“ _Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,_  
Happily I think on you, and then my state,  
Like to the lark at break of day arising  
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;  
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings  
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.”

She lets her head fall back and breathes deep, forces her eyes open to take in the sunlight and the sky above her, blames the cold tears on her cheeks on the glare.

“That… was beautiful,” Cassandra whispers. “I had no idea, Hawke.”

_No one does. That’s the point of a secret._

Hawke keeps her eyes on the sky. “He loved me, and I loved him, and in the end, it wasn’t enough to save us. Did you have any other questions, or are you satisfied now?”

There’s no answer, just the sound of Cassandra’s boots on the stone as she retreats back up the stairs to leave Hawke alone with her thoughts.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for taking the time to read! Comments and kudos are always appreciated, and you can find more content here on AO3 and also [here on my tumblr!](http://gremlinquisitor.tumblr.com)


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